Chapter 4 of Freedom For All – Neville Goddard
The secret of feeling or the calling of the invisible into visible states is beautifully told in the story of Isaac blessing his second son Jacob by the belief, based solely upon feeling, that he was blessing his first son Esau.
It is recorded that Isaac, who was old and blind, felt that he was about to leave this world and wishing to bless his first son Esau before he died, sent Esau hunting for savory venison with the promise that upon his return from the hunt he would receive his father’s blessing.
Now Jacob, who desired the birthright or right to be born through the blessing of his father, overheard his blind father’s request for venison and his promise to Esau. So, as Esau went hunting for the venison, Jacob killed and dressed a kid of his father’s flock.
Placing the skins upon his smooth body to give him the feel of his hairy and rough brother Esau, he brought the tastily prepared kid to his blind father Isaac. And Isaac who depended solely upon his sense of feel mistook his second son Jacob for his first son Esau, and pronounced his blessing on Jacob.
Esau on his return from the hunt learned that his smooth-skinned brother Jacob had supplanted him so he appealed to his father for justice; but Isaac answered and said,
“Thy brother came with subtlety and hath taken away thy blessing. I have made him thy Lord, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants.”
Simple human decency should tell man that this story cannot be taken literally.
There must be a message for man hidden somewhere in this treacherous and despicable act of Jacob!
The hidden message, the formula of success buried in this story was intuitively revealed to the writer in this manner:
Isaac, the blind father, is your consciousness; your awareness of being.
Esau, the hairy son, is your present objectified world . . the rough or sensibly felt; the present moment; the present environment; your present conception of yourself; in short, the world you know by reason of your objective senses.
Jacob, the smooth-skinned lad, the second son, is your desire or subjective state, an idea not yet embodied, a subjective state which is perceived and sensed but not objectively known or seen; a point in time and space removed from the present. In short, Jacob is your defined objective.
The smooth-skinned Jacob . . or subjective state seeking embodiment or the right of birth . . when properly felt or blessed by his father (when consciously felt and fixed as real), becomes objectified; and in so doing he supplants the rough, hairy Esau, or the former objectified state.
Two things cannot occupy a given place at one and the same time, and so as the invisible is made visible, the former visible state vanishes.
Your consciousness is the cause of your world. The conscious state in which you abide determines the kind of world in which you live.
Your present concept of yourself is now objectified as your environment, and this state is symbolized as Esau, the hairy, or sensibly felt; the first son. That which you would like to be or possess is symbolized as your second son, Jacob, the smooth-skinned lad who is not yet seen but is subjectively senses and felt, and will, if properly touched, supplant his brother Esau, or your present world.
Always bear in mind the fact that Isaac, the father of these two sons, or states, is blind. He does not see his smooth-skinned son Jacob; he only feels him. And through the sense of feeling he actually believes Jacob, the subjective, to be Esau, the real, the objectified.
You do not see your desire objectively; you simply sense it (feel it) subjectively. You do not grope in space after a desirable state.
Like Isaac, you sit still and send your first son hunting by removing your attention from your objective world. Then in the absence of your first son, Esau, you invite the desirable state, your second son, Jacob, to come close so that you may feel it.
“Come close, my son, that I may feel you.”
First, you are aware of it in your immediate environment; then you draw it closer and closer and closer until you sense it and feel it in your immediate presence so that it is real and natural to you.
“If two of you shall agree on earth as touching on any point that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father, Which is in heaven.”
The two agree, through the sense of feel, and the agreement is established on earth . . is objectified, is made real.
The two agreeing are Isaac and Jacob . . you and that which you desire; and the agreement is made solely on the sense of feeling.
Esau symbolizes your present objectified world whether it be pleasant or otherwise.
Jacob symbolizes any and every desire of your heart.
Isaac symbolizes your true self . . with your eyes closed to the present world . . in the act of sensing and feeling yourself to be or to possess that which you desire to be or to possess. The secret of Isaac, the sensing, feeling state, is simply the act of mentally separating the sensibly felt (your present physical state) from the insensibly felt (that which you would like to be).
With the objective senses tightly shut, Isaac made, and you can make, the insensibly felt, (the subjective state), seem real or sensibly known, for faith is knowledge.
Knowing the law of self-expression, the law by which the invisible is made visible, is not enough. It must be applied; and this is the method of application.
First: Send your first son Esau . . your present objectified world or problem . . hunting. This is accomplished simply by closing your eyes and taking your attention away from the objectified limitations. As your senses are removed from your objective world, it vanishes from your consciousness or goes hunting.
Second: With your eyes still closed and your attention removed from the world round about you, consciously fix the natural time and place for the realization of your desire.
With your objective senses closed to your present environment, you can sense and feel the reality of any point in time or space, for both are psychological and can be created at will.
It is vitally important that the natural time-space condition of Jacob, that is, the natural time and place for the realization of your desire, be first fixed in your consciousness.
If Sunday is the day on which the thing desired is to be realized, then Sunday must be fixed in consciousness now. Simply begin to feel that it is Sunday until the quietness and naturalness of Sunday is consciously established. You have definite associations with the days, weeks, months and seasons of the year. You have said time and again “Today feels like Sunday, or Monday, or Saturday; or this feels like Spring, or summer, or Fall, or Winter.”
This should convince you that you have definite, conscious impressions that you associate with the days, weeks, and seasons of the year. Then because of these associations you can select any desirable time, and by recalling the conscious impression associated with such time, you can make a subjective reality of that time, now.
Do the same with space. If the room in which you are seated is not the room in which the thing desired would be naturally placed or realized, feel yourself seated in the room or place where it would be natural. Consciously fix this time space impression before you start the act of sensing and feeling the nearness, the reality, and the possession of the thing desired. It matters not whether the place desired be ten thousand miles away or only next door, you must fix in consciousness the fact that right where you are seated, is the desired place.
You do not make a mental journey; you collapse space. Sit quietly where you are, and make “thereness” . . “hereness.” Close your eyes and feel that the very place where you are, is the place desired; feel and sense the reality of it until you are consciously impressed with this fact, for your knowledge of this fact is based solely on your subjective sensing.
Third: In the absence of Esau (the problem) and with the natural time-space established, you invite Jacob (the solution), to come and fill this space . . to come and supplant his brother.
In your imagination, see the thing desired. If you cannot visualize it, sense the general outline of it; contemplate it. Then mentally draw it close to you.
“Come close, my son, that I may feel you.”
Feel the nearness of it; feel it to be in your immediate presence; feel the reality and solidity of it; feel it and see it naturally placed in the room in which you are seated; feel the thrill of actual accomplishment, and the joy of possession.
Now open your eyes.
This brings you back to the objective world . . the rough or sensibly felt world.
Your hairy son Esau has returned from the hunt and by his very presence tells you that you have been betrayed by your smooth-skinned son Jacob . . the subjective, psychologically felt. But, like Isaac, whose confidence was based upon the knowledge of this changeless law, you too will say,
“I have made him thy Lord and all his brethren have I given to him for servants”.
That is, even though your problems appears fixed and real, you have felt the subjective, psychological state to be real to the point of receiving the thrill of that reality; you have experienced the secret of creation, for you have felt the reality of the subjective.
You have fixed a definite psychological state which in spite of all opposition or precedent will objectify itself, thereby fulfilling the name of Jacob . . the supplanter.
Here are a few practical examples of this drama.
First: The blessing or making a thing real.
Sit in your living room and name a piece of furniture, rug or lamp that you would like to have in this particular room. Look at that area of the room where you would place it if you had it. Close your eyes and let all that now occupies that area of the room vanish.
In your imagination see this area as empty space . . there is absolutely nothing there. Now begin to fill this space with the desired piece of furniture; sense and feel that you have it in this very area, imagine you are seeing that which you desired to see. Continue in this consciousness until you feel the thrill of possession.
Second. The blessing or the making of a place real.
You are now seated in your apartment in New York City, contemplating the joy that would be yours if you were on an ocean liner sailing across the great Atlantic.
“I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also.”
Your eyes are closed; you have consciously released the New York apartment and in its place you sense and feel that you are on an ocean liner. You are seated in a deck chair; there is nothing round you but the vast Atlantic.
Fix the reality of this ship and ocean so that in this state you can mentally recall the day when you were seated in your New York apartment dreaming of this day at sea. Recall the mental picture of yourself seated there in New York dreaming of this day. In your imagination see the memory picture of yourself back there in your New York apartment.
If you succeed in looking back on your New York apartment without consciously returning there, then you have successfully prepared the reality of this voyage.
Remain in this conscious state feeling the reality of the ship and the ocean; feel the joy of this accomplishment . . then open your eyes. You have gone and prepared the place; you have fixed a definite psychological state and where you are in consciousness there you shall be in body also.
Third: The blessing or making real of a point in time.
You consciously let go of this day, month or year, as the case may be, and you imagine that it is now that day, month or year which you desire to experience. You sense and feel the reality of the desired time by impressing upon yourself the fact that it is now accomplished.
As you sense the naturalness of this time, you begin to feel the thrill of having fully realized that which before you started this psychological journey in time you desired to experience at this time.
With the knowledge of your power to bless, you can open the doors of any prison . . the prison of illness or poverty or of a humdrum existence.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.”